


Quiet Thought Come Floating Down And Settle

by LayALioness



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, background Bellarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6460735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Murphy meets the girl, it’s not under the best circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quiet Thought Come Floating Down And Settle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raincityruckus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raincityruckus/gifts).



> rarepair fic exchange for raincityruckus 
> 
> this was going to be more memori bonny&clyde-esque but it sort of turned into aromantic murphy existentialism. oops.

When Murphy meets the girl, it’s not under the best circumstances.

For one, he’s wearing a neon orange jumpsuit, which probably wouldn’t manage to look good on a super model, let alone him. For another, he’s collecting garbage on the side of the highway, knee-deep in swamp muck in a ditch, fingers and wrists stained with stale beer and sticky soda from the bottles and dented cans and Styrofoam to-go cups that people have tossed out of cars.

But the worst part is probably the fact that he only meets her because she’s with the women’s correctional facility, in her own orange jumpsuit just across the road.

At least—these are not circumstances under which he should be flirting with some girl, he’s pretty sure. Murphy’s never been the best at flirting; he’s never had the patience for it, or the talent, and he almost never realizes that’s what’s going on until it’s too late. But it’s definitely happening here.

He glances up, only for a minute, because it’s just past midday and the beads of sweat are starting to drip into his eyes and sting. He tries to wipe at his forehead, but his forearm is still sticky with beer and soda and other things he doesn’t really care to think about.

That’s when he sees her—just across the way, somehow managing to make that stupid jumpsuit look good. It’s more washed out than his, like it’s been in the sun too long and lose all its color, and she’s got the top half unbuttoned and tied around her waist, leaving her in a ribbed tank top that shows off her arms.

Murphy’s no stranger to women. He’s not some blushing, stumbling virgin—hasn’t been for a while. He’s fucked around, mostly with men because men are easy, but there were a few girls in high school as well. He wasn’t really a fixture in any one scene, just drifted around from crowd to crowd, mostly keeping to himself unless alcohol was involved.

But this girl is different, and he’s not sure why. That’s the part that pisses him off, really—his body has no business doing things without his say-so. He thought that was how brains were supposed to work; he told the rest of himself what to do. But now his stomach’s feeling like he just rode in an elevator, and he has no goddamned idea why. He’s never even spoken to her.

Murphy knows he’s staring by now, knows he should blink and look away before she turns and catches him, but. He kind of wants her to. He wants to see how she reacts.

He gets his wish soon enough, when The Warden—who isn’t even actually a warden, he’s just some old security guard that the county pays to babysit the suckers who got nailed with a hundred hours of community service—blows his ridiculous gym coach whistle. Water break.

“Someone has to take some over to the girls,” The Warden says. Predictably, every guy throws his hand up in the air, like a bunch of desperate first graders. Honestly, Murphy’s kind of disgusted. It’s like they’ve never done this before.

The Warden just rolls his eyes at the lot of them, finally landing on Murphy, doing his best to look sullen and indifferent, which isn’t hard. Sullen and indifferent is his basic go-to look.

“You,” The Warden beckons with two chubby fingers, that look like sausages left out for too long on the grill. “John, right? Go take some bottles over. Don’t get hit by a truck.”

Murphy makes a face, tucking a few bottles under each arm, before giving a lazy salute. “I’ll try not to, sir.”

The Warden wrinkles his nose, like he smells something awful. Murphy grins.

He skips over the asphalt, heading towards the nearest group of convicts, a few yards away from the girl, because he’s strategic. He played a lot of Risk as a kid.

He gets to her eventually, of course, and by then there’s only one bottle left, which he uses to nudge her in the shoulder, so she’ll turn around.

She does, eyeing him a little, before landing on the bottle and taking it from his hand. It’s still cold from the cooler, and sweating in the heat, dripping water down her wrist and arm as she starts to drink. She’s wearing a pair of black leather gloves, like a motorcyclist’s, with the fingertips chopped off—but just enough to let her bright orange nail polish show.

Murphy’s never really been that into girls—he’s found a few hot, more than a few fuckable, but no one that’s really stood out to him before, not the way that guys do. He just assumed that meant he leaned more towards guys in general, but now he’s watching this girl drink water, getting worked up over the way that her fucking neck moves, seriously—and he’s starting to think maybe he’s just got a very specific type.

Although he’s never been into face tattoos before, either. Clearly there’s a first time for everything. It looks like some sort of tribal design, the kind douchebag frat guys usually get on their arms, but she manages to pull it off.

She finishes the whole thing in one go, which impresses him more than it should, and then tosses the bottle in her trash bag, so bulging it looks ready to pop.

“I’m Emori,” she says, but she doesn’t offer her hand.

“Murphy,” he says, and doesn’t offer his either. “So what’d you do to get highway patrol?”

She smirks a little, which warps the ink on her face until it looks sort of like a winking dragon. “Knocked off a 7/11. You?”

“Killed a guy.”

She gives a wicked grin, tipping her head back to give a full-bellied laugh. He supposes it’s fair; if he’d really committed murder, he’d be on a prison highway patrol, not just community service. He’s not sure about armed robbery, but he’s pretty sure it works the same way. She probably just shoplifted a six pack of Coors, or something.

“John!” The Warden gives another shrill blow on his whistle. “Get back to work!”

Murphy shoots the man a glare that he can probably just blame on the sunlight, while Emori smirks beside him.

“Thought you said your name was Murphy,” she says, teasing, and Murphy swallows down a grin. He’s never really seen the point in flirting—people should just say what they want. He’s never understood why people complicate things; if they want to get laid, they should say they want to get laid. If they want something else, they should say it. Anything else is too much work.

“Yeah, well, where I come from, most people have more than one name,” he says, wry, and then grimaces when The Warden blows his whistle a third time.

“On this side, John!” he calls, and Murphy waves him off.

Emori rifles through her massive trash bag, coming up with a stay paper label, pockmarked on the sides and torn, and half of a Bic pen. She scrawls something down on the paper, and then flashes him a grin, tucking it in the open breast pocket of his jumpsuit.

“Thanks for the water, John.” She shoves him back towards the street, laughing when he almost trips over some loose pebbles of asphalt.

“Anytime,” he calls, and crosses back towards the ditch, where the other delinquents are flashing him looks of envy. Whether that’s because he got a break from the work, or because he got to spend that break talking to a girl, he isn’t sure.

“That’s fifteen extra minutes, John,” The Warden says, giving his best impression of a stern father. Murphy gives him a sickly sweet smile, snatching up his garbage bag from where he’d left it on the ground.

“Add it to my tab.” He waits until the others have gone back to their own trash collections, before digging the note from his pocket.

It’s a phone number, obviously, written in a penmanship so sharp that each number looks like a weapon. Murphy traces the bumps and divots, before putting it back.

It’s just a number, after all. He barely even knows this girl, and definitely doesn’t care either way. He might not even call her.

It’s cute that he still thinks he’s in control.

Clarke’s the one who finds out first, because apparently the universe isn’t done fucking with him. She catches him sitting in the far end booth, before the bar’s even open yet, looking at the label in his hands. Before he even notices she’s there, she’s scrambled into the seat beside him, digging her hip bone into his, without concern.

“What’s that?” she asks, peeking over his shoulder when he tries to twist away. “A phone number? Ohh, is it a cute person’s phone number?”

“People aren’t cute,” Murphy shoots back, tucking the label into his pants pocket, but Clarke doesn’t seem to care. She’s got what looks like a glass of rum and coke, which she must have gone back behind the bar to make for herself. There’s about half a can of cherries in bobbing blurs of red, near the bottom, which she keeps poking at with her straw.

“Speak for yourself,” she says, grinning and tossing her hair back behind her shoulder. “I’m very cute. So is Bellamy. So is Wells.”

Murphy rolls his eyes. Clarke Griffin has been an official thorn in his side ever since she decided to adopt Bellamy, and subsequently all of Bellamy’s friends. Suddenly they’d gone from Bellamy, Murphy and Miller—to Bellamy, Murphy, Miller, Clarke and a dozen other people Murphy barely tolerates. He tries not to be downstairs on nights when he knows they’ll all be at the bar, but now that Clarke and Bellamy are dating, that’s become nearly impossible. She’s always there.

“Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, making out with your boyfriend?” Murphy asks pointedly, and Clarke pokes him with her straw, leaving a gross sticky-wet spot on his t-shirt.

“You’re just jealous because you don’t get to make out with him anymore,” she says brightly, and Murphy hums.

“Yeah, that must be it.” To be fair, he does miss making out with him. Bellamy was Murphy’s first—if not boyfriend, then first something. They went to college together, and Bellamy sort of took him under his wing.

But Bellamy wanted a boyfriend, and Murphy didn’t. They didn’t really break up, because they’d never dated in the first place, and they were still friends, but. Sometimes Murphy wishes people didn’t put so much stock in things like romance. Everything would be so much easier, and he wouldn’t feel so self-conscious about ending up alone.

Because, let’s face it; he’s definitely ending up alone. If not because he can’t fucking stand relationships, then simply because most people can’t really stand him. And, most days, he’s pretty good with that.

But then he sees how Bellamy acts around Clarke, constantly grinning all lopsided, happier than Murphy’s ever seen him. He sees Miller go bright fucking red around that Korean kid that he likes. And he thinks, maybe he’s missing out on something.

“Hey babe,” Bellamy calls, walking in.

Clarke and Murphy share a look before calling out “Hey babe,” at the same time.

Bellamy glances up from where he’s standing behind the bar, frowning over at them. He’s got his glasses on, which means he’s probably squinting through the dirty lenses because he never fucking cleans them.

“Murphy,” he says, surprised. Murphy supposes that’s fair; he hasn’t come down to the main lobby recently, because he hasn’t been in the mood for people, and Bellamy’s been on a trivia kick for the past few days, so the bar’s been more full than usual. “What are you doing here?”

“What, did you forget I live here, already?” Murphy drawls. He and Bellamy used to share the apartment upstairs, but Bellamy moved in with Clarke a few months back, and Murphy’s been enjoying being able to walk around naked.

Bellamy shakes his head, starting to wipe down the counters before he opens up for the night. “How was trash collecting?”

“Great,” Murphy drones. “Pretty sure I found One Eyed Willy’s map in a Bud Light bottle.”

“He did find a phone number,” Clarke adds, because she’s a traitor, and Murphy shoots her a glare. She grins and hops up to go perch on a bar stool, leaning over the counter to kiss her boyfriend.

“What, like a 1-800 number, or like a _Call Becky for a good time! number?_ ” Bellamy asks. He’s holding Clarke’s hand, pouring shots with the other, because he’s a show off.

“First of all, Becky is the worst name for a hooker, like ever. It’d be Scarlet, or Vera, or something. Second of all, it’s just a number. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”

“Was it from another inmate, or something?”

“Don’t be stupid, Bellamy,” Clarke argues. “It’d be a delinquent, not an inmate. They’re not from prison.”

“Oh right, how could I forget,” Bellamy rolls his eyes, shooting Murphy a look. “So? Delinquent? Passing semi truck driver?” He gasps dramatically. “Not The Warden.”

Murphy may or may not have been put on highway patrol before, under The Warden’s watch. He may or may not have gone on a drunken rant about the man. He vaguely remembers the phrase _slimy Jabba the Hut foster dad shoving father figure bullshit down our throats like cough medicine._

“Hey,” Clarke says, and Murphy winces, because he knows what’s coming. Clarke always gets painfully earnest after a few minutes of joking around. He’s pretty sure it’s because she was bullied as a kid or something. “You know you don’t have to be embarrassed, right? Even if it’s The Warden, we’ll still support you.”

“Wow, okay, thanks cupcake,” Clarke rolls her eyes as he crosses over to the bar. “But as heartwarmingly _gagging_ as that is, her name is Emori.”

“Whose name is Emori?” The bell over the door rings as Raven steps inside, followed closely by Wells, like always. Murphy can’t really help the groan, doesn’t mean to let it slip, but Raven flips him off anyway.

“Murphy’s crush,” Clarke says helpfully, and Murphy flicks a cherry at her.

“Murphy has a crush?” Wells asks. Murphy levels him with a heavy look.

“One more word about it and I’ll end you.” Clarke elbows him in the ribs, so he softens it with a grin. “In a friendly way, of course.”

Wells just rolls his eyes and readjusts his fancy cable-knit sweater. It’s really incredibly unfair that he gets to be hot and rich. He shouldn’t get both.

“Of course,” Raven says, dry, and leans over to smack a kiss to Clarke’s cheek. “You smell like shit, Murphy.”

Murphy smirks. “Nice to see you too.”

“Kids, settle down,” Bellamy says, trying out his Dad Voice. Murphy flicks a cherry at him too, for good measure, and Clarke swats his hand away from her drink.

“Ok, new game,” Raven declares, gesturing towards the dart board. Trump’s picture is still there from the last game; before that, it was Henry VIII, because Bellamy got to pick the game. It’s a different one each week, and depending on who makes the rules, they get increasingly stupid.

“Have fun,” Murphy says, draining the last of Clarke’s drink while she isn’t looking. They boo as he heads back to his booth, but Bellamy’s shushing them all soon enough, as he switches the OPEN sign on.

Murphy knows there’s some sort of rule about calling on the first date, and that he’s not supposed to, but—well, they haven’t really been on the first date, and anyway, fuck the rule. He calls the number.

“Yes?” She sounds tinny over the phone line, but roughly the same as that afternoon.

“Hey, uh, Emori?” he makes a face at himself since she can’t see, because since when is he a stutterer? “It’s M—John. From the chain gang.”

He can hear a smile in her voice when she speaks, so he takes that as a good sign. “John,” she says. “Not Murphy?”

“I’ve got the night off,” he says, and she laughs. “Hey, my friend owns a bar, and everyone here is annoying. Wanna come?”

“You drive a hard bargain,” she says. “Why would I want to go to a bar filled with annoying people?”

Bellamy says something that sets everyone off laughing, and Murphy switches ears. “So we can make fun of them all.”

“Hmm, that does sound like a good time,” Emori agrees. “Text me the address.”

Murphy grins and hangs up, sending her the directions before ordering them both a round.

“Tequila,” Raven observes. “Feeling ambitious, I see.”

“Maybe I’m just trying to grow as a person,” he sneers, snatching up a bowl of extra lime wedges.

“You can have the limes but don’t touch the salt,” Bellamy barks from across the bar, waggling a finger at them. “I’m running out and I can’t get more until the morning.”

“No salt?” Raven demands, outraged. “You’re ruining my authentic tequila experience, Blake! What kind of sham business are you running?”

“The kind where you get free shots for being quiet,” Bellamy says.

“True,” she grants, and takes one. The bell over the door chimes, and Murphy glances up to see Emori walking in.

She looks the same, obviously, but different too. She’s changed out of her jumpsuit, for one, switched it for a pair of skin-tight jeans, ripped up and down the thighs so her brown skin peeks through. She’s still wearing the tank top, and the leather gloves. She’s still got the tattoo, and he’s still very much into her.

Emori catches sight of him and grins, which is—it’s stupid how it makes his stomach flip, to see her grin like that. At him. He can’t remember the last time anybody looked so happy to see him. He tips his head back towards the booth, and meets her there.

“You weren’t lying,” she grins, sliding into the bench seat. “Everyone here looks _really_ annoying.”

“You came right in time,” he agrees, setting the plate of shots between them.

“So, what are the rules?” she asks, and at his blank look, she adds “For the drinking game.”

“Drinking game?” He can hear the others playing whatever convoluted game of darts they’ve made up, booing and shouting in turn.

“You can’t have shots without a drinking game,” Emori says, sounding scandalized, and Murphy considers.

“We each say something about ourselves, and whoever’s is worse, takes the shot.”

Emori eyes him for a moment, looking skeptical. “This is like that summer camp game.”

Murphy cuts his eyes at her. “The what?”

“You know, that—the never have I ever game,” Emori explains, and downs a shot. “Preemptive strike,” she grins. “I’ll go first, I guess. I was raised in foster care,” she says smugly.

Murphy grins. “Me too. My dad killed himself when I was eight.”

Emori pouts a little. “My parents just abandoned me in a car park, damn.” She takes another shot. “Your turn.”

“Alright,” Murphy sighs. “My mom blamed me for my dad’s death.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Emori waves a gloved hand. “One of my foster parents used to beat me with a wicker broom.”

Murphy takes a shot, obliging. “And here I was, thinking getting beaten with a regular broom was bullshit.”

“Yeah, you have _no_ idea,” Emori grins. “Okay—one of my foster dickheads kept me locked in the trunk of his car for two hours.”

“One of my foster homes was so full, I had to sleep on the roof,” Murphy says. “In the rain.”

Emori grins wickedly. “That same dickhead did this,” she raises her hand, delicately peeling the glove off finger-by-finger, until the bubbled, scarred skin is exposed. “Battery acid,” she adds, like a challenge. Like she’s waiting to see how he’ll react.

Murphy takes two shots in a row. “Badass,” he decides. “But I killed a guy when I was fourteen, so,”

Emori tips her head back and laughs that full-bellied laugh from before, and he grins. “We’re going to need more salt.”

Murphy isn’t the worst drinker in the world, but Emori has clearly showed up to win, and she takes competition seriously. By the second round, his vision’s starting to blur, and he’s fairly sure she’s in the lead, with a dead brother to add to two absentee parents and an acid-scarred hand.

By the third round—they’ve moved upstairs, Murphy stumbling along and half-collapsed on Emori’s shoulder as she kicks open the door.

“That was hot,” he mumbles, and she laughs, running her nails through his hair, which he’s discovered he’s definitely into.

“So, I’m assuming you have a bedroom,” she says, glancing around in the dark. He didn’t bother cleaning beforehand, so there are wet towels on all the chairs, and dirty socks and a lot of other things he doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed about. “Unless you just want to sleep on the floor.”

“I’ve done it before,” Murphy grins. “Basement floor, too. Cold and covered in cobwebs.”

“I thought that was the roof,” Emori prods him towards the couch, which seems like a pretty good compromise. She shoves him over to make room.

“That was another home,” he says, “Jesus, keep up.”

“Oh yeah, stupid me,” she grins, and he reaches down to tangle their fingers together, scars and all. She twitches a little, like her first instinct is to pull away, but then she melts against him. “I lost my virginity when I was thirteen,” she says. “Assistant soccer coach.”

“What a coincidence,” Murphy drawls. “Me too.”

She laughs, and kisses him, wet and warm and softer than he was expecting, but that’s probably for the best. He can feel himself falling asleep, with her in his arms, and this is definitely something that’s never happened. Sleeping with someone without fucking them first isn’t really Murphy’s style.

But he seems to be doing a lot of things differently today.

“Go to sleep, John,” she whispers, grin sliding against the skin of his neck. He picks up her hand, presses it to his mouth, runs his tongue over the divots between her fingers, and she shivers. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

That’ll be new, too. He’s looking forward to it.


End file.
